The first thing I want you to know is that I drowned those kittens for a reason. Villains rarely do anything without purpose, and I’m no exception, to that or any other rule. Irrational, passionate acts are for heroes, with their bright armor and their grand ideas, their conviction that with enough heart they can right any wrong, unravel any curse. My dragons were once well-fed on their kind, and their skulls still decorate the spikes above my gates.

Rated PG. Fictional animals were harmed in the making of this podcast. Also knights, damsels, dragons, and medieval economies.

Comments (17)

Nice story! Hey, any chance you could make that amazingly funny song at the end of the cast available for solo download, or a link to the webpage of whomever the singer is, or provide a link to the iTunes spot where it could be purchased?

Skullcrusher Mountain rocks. My daughter and I were recently driving to one of our NJ PodCasters meetings, and were singing quite loudly as we drove up and down the rolling skull-crusher hills around our parts of Jersey.

The story? The story was marvelous. The ending had that cliff-hanger quality that good fiction has. This why I enjoy Escape Pod, the high quality of the fiction… and yes, the readings are great, too. I’ve not always been one for reading short fiction, because it just goes a bit too quick. EscapePod has scratched that itch, though, and I want to thank you for being the ivory backscratcher my mental back has been missing… Snakes on a Plane, there’s an image I shouldn’t have thrown out there…

I first heard Skullchrusher Mountain at the end of a Dragon Page Wingin’ It podcast – it was gut bustingly awesome then, and its gut bustingly awesome now. Long live Jonathan Coulton! Long live Escape Pod! Long live Janni Lee Simner. Great work everyone.

Ditto and since Bazooka Joe was being a shameless pimp of his Jonathan Coulton interview let me step even lower and do the same: http://legup.blogspot.com/2005/12/freeculture-news8.html
I played and discussed: 700 Hobo Names John Hodgman and Jonathan Coulton
Better
Dance, Soterios Johnson, Dance
Skullcrusher Mountain
Screwed
Podsafe Christmas Song
and… look for JC interview on upcoming Slice of SciFi. Bazooka Joe, you rock-along with Steve and Jonathan and Janni Lee.

[…] Escape Pod last week played a song that I highly recommend you check out (and the story’s pretty good too). It’s Skullcrusher Mountain by Jonathan Coulton, and is available for free under a Creative Commons license. It’s probably not the kind of song you’re expecting from the title The lyrics are just great. It’s also on iTunes. […]